Allowing the “Enter” key to press the submit button, as opposed to only using MouseClick

Question

I\'m learning Swing class now and everything about it. I\'ve got this toy program I\'ve been putting together that prompts for a name and then presents a JOptionPane with th

Answer 1

You can use the top level containers root pane to set a default button, which will allow it to respond to the enter.

SwingUtilities.getRootPane(submitButton).setDefaultButton(submitButton);

This, of course, assumes you've added the button to a valid container ;)

UPDATED

This is a basic example using the JRootPane#setDefaultButton and key bindings API

public class DefaultButton {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new DefaultButton();
    }

    public DefaultButton() {
        EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                try {
                    UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName());
                } catch (ClassNotFoundException | InstantiationException | IllegalAccessException | UnsupportedLookAndFeelException ex) {
                }

                JFrame frame = new JFrame("Test");
                frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
                frame.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
                frame.add(new TestPane());
                frame.pack();
                frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
                frame.setVisible(true);
            }

        });
    }

    public class TestPane extends JPanel {

        private JButton button;
        private JLabel label;
        private int count;

        public TestPane() {

            label = new JLabel("Press the button");
            button = new JButton("Press me");

            setLayout(new GridBagLayout());
            GridBagConstraints gbc = new GridBagConstraints();
            gbc.gridy = 0;
            add(label, gbc);
            gbc.gridy++;
            add(button, gbc);
            gbc.gridy++;
            add(new JButton("No Action Here"), gbc);

            button.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
                @Override
                public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                    doButtonPressed(e);
                }

            });

            InputMap im = button.getInputMap(WHEN_ANCESTOR_OF_FOCUSED_COMPONENT);
            ActionMap am = button.getActionMap();

            im.put(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_SPACE, 0), "spaced");
            am.put("spaced", new AbstractAction() {
                @Override
                public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                    doButtonPressed(e);
                }

            });

        }

        @Override
        public void addNotify() {
            super.addNotify();
            SwingUtilities.getRootPane(button).setDefaultButton(button);
        }

        protected void doButtonPressed(ActionEvent evt) {
            count++;
            label.setText("Pressed " + count + " times");
        }

    }

}

This of course, assumes that the component with focus does not consume the key event in question (like the second button consuming the space or enter keys